Left 4 Louis
by Overlord276
Summary: An epic struggle between the lone survivor and an armada of bloodthirsty zombies. Follow Louis as he battles through countless zombies in search for salvation. Written for an 11th grade English project, so there might be awkward wording/vocabulary.
1. A World Infected

On planet Earth, some changes take centuries, like the Agricultural Revolution or the gradual increase in technology. Some changes, however, take only a couple of days. Almost overnight, the world had been changed in an incomprehensible and incoherent series of events. The advent of super-advanced technology brought us the media phone, the internet, computers, and all sorts of beneficiaries of mankind. Unfortunately the new technology also destroyed mankind altogether.  
What was first an innocent experiment with the rabies virus is now a worldwide crisis that has wiped out nearly half of its denizens. The new virus spread throughout society so fast that it reached an epidemic status in a mere three days. The original scientists perished at the ravenous effects of the virus, and so the only hopes of a quick remedy had been lost. The virus would infect and painfully mutate its victim into a mindless, bloodthirsty zombie. The virus penetrated every possible defense known to man; no one is safe from it.


	2. The Safe House

A normal world seemed so long a past; a quiet suburban home with a lovely wife and two beautiful children. A job as an IT professional at one of the largest computer companies in the country. Louis K. Grow would trade anything to get his life back. Now, it was all about the constant fear of being utterly destroyed; the mad dash toward salvation from this hell. His life destroyed, with nothing left but his son's metal baseball bat and a backpack hastily stuffed with various foodstuffs, Louis ran. Murderous zombies chased him everywhere, and as Louis decapitated and beat down the horrifying beasts, he couldn't help but worry about his family. "Could any of the zombies I killed been my own wife? Or my children?" Louis constantly thought. Tears streamed down his eyes as he heard a sickening crunch of his bat connecting with a rather young-looking zombie. The zombie fell as blood leaked out a hole Louis cleaved out.  
With a huge sigh of relief, he saw up ahead, a heavily reinforced steel plate door, which was painted red. Louis rushed towards the beckoning doorway as he pushed a couple of zombies out of the way. The zombies chased after him, but Louis ran into the room and slammed the door into their disfigured faces. Panting, Louis slid a large rusted steel rebar into its slot, and began to pile furniture against the doorway. Taking off his backpack, Louis turned on the light and slid to the floor in exhaustion. After he wiped his brow of sweat, he took a look around the safe room. Shelves of supplies lay there untouched, and Louis's jaw dropped. Nobody else made it. But how is that possible? This safe room was only one of the many stops along the road to evacuation. Surely more people could have come by? But the undisturbed boxes of non-perishable food, medical kits, and ammunition spoke the truth. Louis was tortured by the fact that none of his friends, his family, have made it. They were gone. All gone. He is the only one left, and yet he still had a long and torturous route ahead of him. What was pasted on the walls made his feelings even worse. Unhelpful governmental warning signs have been plastered all over the wall. However, there is a sign of hope. The walls were also covered with blatantly (2) rude graffiti expressing the cynical (3) views of other survivors. In the corner of the room, he saw a dusty stack of old weapons. He looked at his son's bloodstained baseball bat, and sobbing, lied it on the floor, and scribbled an RIP note with a pencil nearby. He took an old 9mm pistol and a rusty military-issue assault rifle. He dug into a pile of ammunition and stuffed them into his backpack. He also took a first aid kit and a bottle of instant pain relief medicine. Scattered around was empty food packaging and a greasy tub of KFC. Louis was mollified (4) by the fact that at least some people made it as far as he did. Finally, he turned around to look at a similar steel-plated door, out into the open, where the rest of his route continued. Louis sighed once more, and laid down on the cold, dirty floor to rest.


	3. City Ruins

Louis didn't sleep. Constant thoughts flowed through his mind and lit up like fireworks. He thought of the past few hours of his long and treacherous journey. He had been traveling with three friends who tried to escape with him. Bill, Zoey, and Francis. Louis broke out in tears when he forced himself to relive those horrible moments when they died. Bill and Zoey, sunk into oblivion when they both suddenly disappeared without a trace. The sudden disappearance of two comrades chilled Louis and Francis to the core. The two cautiously made their way to the next safe room, only to have Francis run ahead with his hotheadedness and panic when the next safe room was sighted. Louis cried for Francis to come back, but Francis condescendingly accused Louis of cowardice as he chopped off a zombie's head. Realizing that Francis will not listen, he started to run after him, batting zombies along the way. An ear-splitting screech pierced through the night, and Louis stopped dead in his tracks.  
"Oh no….HEY MAN THAT'S NOT COOL!!" He cried in panic, shaking his fist to the heavens.  
He heard Francis scream and then saw a hunter, a dark, hooded figure that attacks survivors with its pernicious pounce lunge off the roof and arc in the air. Francis stood rooted to the spot, unable to move out of fear, and then crumpled at the force of the hunter.  
"Ooohhh nooooo!" Francis cried.  
Louis screamed in rage and tried to run to Francis, but it was too late. The hunter scratched Francis in the chest, and clawed the life out of him. Louis shrieked in rage, and planted a serious blow on the hunter's head. The hunter was sent reeling into the air. Louis crouched by the mangled body of Francis and cried, but his sobbing was short lived. A spine-tingling cry echoed throughout the city. A horde of zombies was coming. They can smell the blood. Louis took one last look at his dear friend, grabbed his son's bat, and prayed for survival.  
Louis could not go on thinking of these terrible thoughts, and spent the rest of the time reading the didactic government posters giving advice on how to react to the infection. It was dark, which was, on the contrary, the best time to travel. He checked and rechecked his supplies and his weapons, and slowly opened the door. The door groaned and came to a clanging stop. Louis checked his left and right side, and ran forward, into a group of dazed zombies milling around. The zombies were meek and did not attack instantly, but once they noticed you, they swarm to you. He fired into the midst of the group, and the zombies fell to the floor, pierced by bullets. Louis looked around at his surroundings; there were two routes, both littered with trash incongruous to normal society. Overturned cars and trash bins, craters, and dead bodies laid on the edges of both streets. Louis was ambivalent as to which route to take at first, but after careful thought, he took the route that will lead him to the roof of Mercy Hospital, where the helipad was. Louis moved slowly along the sidewalk of the dark street, staying close to the walls. All of a sudden, he entered the smoldering remains of an intersection. An exploded fuel tank spouted a thick cloud of smoke, and through the smoke, to Louis's disbelief, was a bright light. He thought it was a rescue helicopter, but he was quickly bemused and stunned to see that it was only a KFC street sign. His spirits fell, and in his shock and failure, he accidentally knocked over an aluminum trash can. Much to his horror, the loud piercing noise attracted the attention of a horde of zombies.  
Chiding himself for his untimely, distracting, and wistful thought about food, Louis quickly moved to a small corner in a doorway of a building to make it easier to defend against the incoming horde of zombies. Hundreds of zombies, all mindlessly servile to the fact that any survivor must die, charged rabidly at Louis, their arms and legs poised for attack. Louis crouched in the corner and aimed his assault rifle at the incoming cluster, and fired. Zombie after zombie toppled to the ground, as their zombie comrades trampled over them. Louis reloaded, and began firing again. However, the zombies kept coming, and the horde seemed endless. Some of the zombies affected death, only to get back up and slowly start rushing towards the lone survivor again. Louis's adrenaline was coursing through his veins; the loud sound of gunfire was ringing in his ears. As he fired into the oncoming horde, he screamed vituperative and sardonic comments about the zombies, while also censuring himself of his mistakes. Louis rammed the zombies with the butt of his rifle as they got closer and closer, and after what seemed like an eternity; everything was quiet, as the last empty bullet shell casing fell to a pile with a clink. He sat there dazed, his heart still pumping, his ears peeled for any other noise. He looked at the pile of empty shell casings and swore. He checked his pockets and bags, and found that he was already low on ammunition.


	4. Salvation?

Louis swore at himself for wasting so much ammunition in only one of many zombie encounters. Now it was imperious that he reached the hospital, but fortunately, it was just a few blocks away. Relieved at his luck, he deprecated himself at his carelessness and vowed not to make that mistake again. Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors entered his ears. A helicopter, much too far away to gain attention of, flew to the top of the hospital in hopes of finding survivors waiting. Louis took the last ounce of energy inside him, and dashed for the hospital entrance. Inside the lobby was practically an entire army of mindless zombies. Louis skidded to a halt, and pulled out a makeshift grenade he made before setting out. He knew it was his only one, and he had to make it count. Strapped to the crudely taped- pipe bomb was a high-pitched noise emitter, and once activated, it attracted all the zombies in the area. Louis prayed for its success, and primed it. The emitter instantly blew out a loud beeping sound, and Louis threw it to the opposite side of the stairwell. All the zombies froze, and turned to the beeping pipe bomb. The grenade clanked to a stop, and was instantly surrounded by a massive flock of insane zombies. The beeping grew quicker, until at last, the bomb detonated. A blinding flash of light coupled with a hard shockwave erupted in the midst of the horde, and all the zombies were instantly vaporized. A red cloud of blood mushroomed out and coated the walls and the floors with a dark crimson glow. Twisted bone and limbs were sent flying everywhere, shattering windows, splattering on the ceiling, and knocking down ornaments. It was a gruesome scene, but Louis paid no attention to it. He was already up five floors, and dashed out into the strangely empty hallway. Dead zombies were piled to the sides of the hallway, and Louis cried in hope for more survivors. He dashed toward the elevator room and jabbed the button for the top floor. He could hear the grinding and whining of the cables pulling the cart towards him. The elevator doors slid open, and Louis jumped in, and patiently waited for his rescue. With his absolute last ounce of energy, he climbed one more flight of stairs and burst out of the stairwell, only to see the helicopter being swarmed by oncoming zombies. The pilot held a pistol in his hand and was firing rapidly into the horde, and in the passenger area, a soldier manned a chain gun and was mowing down the zombies in rapid succession. The pilot's faced was stricken with panic and tried to take off.  
"Oh NO!!!" WAIT!!!" Louis screamed with all his might and started to fire into the air.  
Louis saw the soldier look at him and yell something to the pilot. The soldier pulled out a pack of C4 and threw it into the crowd of zombies. He detonated it and blew a massive crater into the helipad, while wiping out all the zombies.  
"USE THE STAIRS!!!" The soldier screamed through the whine of the helicopter blades, jabbing a finger towards the side of the helipad.  
Louis scrambled for the stairs with renewed energy, and leaped into the soldier's arms. He was immediately collapsed into a nearby chair, and saw that there was another man sitting next to him, holding a bloody arm.  
"Are you the last one???" The soldier yelled over the din.  
Louis nodded yes.  
The soldier patted him on the back, and said, "Don't worry, we'll be in a safe haven soon!"  
Louis's eyes suddenly flooded and tears streamed down his face in gratitude, as the helicopter slowly rose above the demolished helipad, making a whirlwind of smoke around the chopper. Finally, the aircraft leaned to the left, and flew towards safety, towards a new home.  
Louis could not help but cry in the fact that everything he has lived for, his devoted wife, and his two children, were all gone. His teardrops fell over his seat and through the air, down into the desolate, decimated city, which has once been his home.


End file.
